em by
item, and that is exactly the amount it came to."

"Nevertheless," said Lewis, "the will reads that way. It is in legal
form, written in Marshall's hand, and signed with his signature, and
sealed. Will you examine it, gentlemen? There can be no question of the
writing or the signature."

My father took the paper and read it slowly, and old Gaeki nosed it over
my father's arm, his eyes searching the structure of each word, while
Mr. Gosford sat back comfortably in his chair like one elevated to a
victory.

"It is in Marshall's hand and signature," said my father, and old Gaeki,
nodded, wrinkling his face under his shaggy eyebrows. He went away still
wagging his grizzled head, wrote a memorandum on an envelope from his
pocket, and sat down in, his chair.

My father turned now to young Marshall.

"My boy," he said, "why do you say that some one has deceived you?"

"Because, sir," replied the lad, "my father was to leave me twenty
thousand dollars. That was his plan. Thirty thousand dollars should be
set aside for Mr. Gosford, and the remainder turned over to me."

"That would be thirty thousand dollars to Mr. Gosford, instead of
fifty," said my father.

"Yes, sir," replied the boy; "that is the way my father said he would
write his will. But it was not written that way. It is fifty thousand
dollars to Mr. Gosford, and the remainder to me. If it were thirty
thousand dollars to Mr. Gosford, as my father, said his will would be,
that would have left me twenty thousand dollars from the estate; but
giving Mr. Gosford fifty thousand dollars leaves me nothing."

"And so you adventured on a little larceny," sneered the Englishman.

The boy stood very straight and white.

"I do not understand this thing," he said, "but I do not believe that my
father would deceive me. He never did deceive me in his life. I may have
been a disappointment to him, but my father was a gentle man." His voice
went up strong and clear. "And I refuse to believe that he would tell me
one thing and do another!"

One could not fail to be impressed, or to believe that the boy spoke the
truth.

"We are sorry," said Lewis, "but the will is valid and we cannot go
behind it."

My father walked about the room, his face in reflection. Gosford sat at
his ease, transcribing a note on his portfolio. Old Gaeki had gone back
to his chair and to his little case of bottles; he got them up on his
knees, as though he would be diverted by fingering the